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197627

April 4th, 2011 22:00

New XPS 8300

Just bought a new XPS8300.

New motherboard version, (0Y2MRG code) and everything so far seems to work great!

Crossing my fingers as this is the first Dell computer I've ever owned.

Two questions that I'm hoping someone can answer:

 

1. What is the maximum amount of memory that can be upgraded on this computer?

I've read 16Gb. It appears the current installed 8Gb configuration is (4 slots) with 2Gb sticks. Not sure if these are dual channel matched sets or not?
Could not find that anywhere in the Service Manual or specs.

So, in order to upgrade this to the 16Gb max (if that is true), you would need to remove all 4 original sticks and replace with (4) 4Gb sticks?

Is it possible to install dual channel 8Gb sticks for 32Gb? If not why is there a 16Gb max?

2. I need to add a PCie Firewire 1394A/B card to this computer, I was told this computer had Firewire IEEE1394 from Best Buy salesperson, but if it has one I haven't found it yet and I've check the manual and the entire box to no avail!

So, is there any particular PCIe FW card that would be "best" to add to this computer that will work properly in Win7?

3 Posts

February 11th, 2013 19:00

Am I going to see that much difference with the 32 vs the 16? What if I upgraded the processor, how much noticeable difference am I going to see? What video card would you upgrade to?

12 Posts

April 16th, 2013 13:00

I was able to put in an nvidia GTX460 and a Radeon 6850 (not in the same system) and both worked fine with my XPS 8300.  The power supply probably can't handle more than a mid-range kind of card so don't look for a high end one.

9 Legend

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16.1K Posts

April 18th, 2013 04:00

I was waiting for someone to try this, I did not want to make a very expensive test.

I assume you have the i7-2600 & BIOS Revision A06?

12 Posts

April 18th, 2013 07:00

The i7 model of the XPS 8300 (I think they only offered the i7-2600, the rest were i5 or i3 variants?), yes, but I can't recall the last time I updated the BIOS.  I'd have to check.  This was on two different systems, too.  1 system I put in 32 GB as a proof of concept and after that worked I split it to 16 GB per system.  On one I have 20 GB running Win7 Pro and on the other I have 20 GB (16 GB usable) as it was running Win7 Home Premium.  Still, a good upgrade from the 6 GB and 8 GB those systems previously had.  I may not be able to check more than one BIOS, though; the other system belongs to the wife and she don't like me messin' with her stuff!  ;)

12 Posts

April 18th, 2013 20:00

A06 on my system, A03 on her system.  I've since upgraded hers to A06 as well.

9 Legend

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16.1K Posts

April 18th, 2013 21:00

Fantastic, in that case I might upgrade mine to 32 GB of RAM when the prices go down.

September 6th, 2013 19:00

very good information, but to increase the memory to 32 gb of ram you have any heating problem

thanks

October 4th, 2013 11:00

I want to take my xps 8300 to 32gb but I was wondering if you had any heating problems...?

and feel the performance of the machine ?.. greetings

12 Posts

October 4th, 2013 12:00

I have had no heating issues that I am aware of.  I have not noticed any system stability issues, either.  Performance has always been good.  Once you get above 8 GB, you're not going to notice a huge performance change unless you're doing memory-intensive stuff like photo or video editing or running virtual machines.  You'll get a far larger performance increase from switching to using an SSD instead.

I split my RAM between two XPS 8300 systems (16 GB and 20 GB, using some existing RAM) as that was enough for my purposes.  I haven't run into an issue where I was performance-bound by lack of memory, personally.

October 4th, 2013 14:00

thanks for the info i'll buy you recommend CMX32GX3M4A1333C9 memory ram, I'm a musician and work with virtual machines .. regards

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